De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

Simultaneously Colmenares embarked sixty soldiers
in the four uru and set out up the river to look for
Zemaco. The young woman’s brother served
as guide. Arriving at the village of Tichiri,
where the provisions for the army had been collected,
Vasco Nunez took possession of the place and captured
the stores of different coloured wines, as we have
already noted at Comogra, and different kinds of native
stores. The sacchos of Tichiri, who had acted
in a manner as quartermaster of the army, was captured
together with four of the principal officers, for they
did not expect the arrival of the Spaniards.
The sacchos was hanged on a tree that he had himself
planted, and shot through with arrows in full view
of the natives, and the other officers were hanged
by Colmenares on scaffolds, to serve as an example
to the others. This chastisement of the conspirators
so terrified the entire province that there was not
a person left to raise a finger against the torrent
of Spanish wrath. Peace was thus established,
and their caciques bending their necks beneath the
yoke were not punished. The Spaniards enjoyed
some days of abundance, thanks to the well-filled
storehouse they had captured at Tichiri.[3]

[Note 3: This pitiful story of native treachery
is frequently repeated, and explains the enslavement,
the downfall, and in parts, the extermination of the
American tribes. Everywhere they betrayed one
another to the final undoing of all.]

BOOK VI

In the general assembly convoked shortly afterwards,
the colonists unanimously decided to send an envoy
to Hispaniola to ask for reinforcements and for the
appointment of a judge. The same envoy would
go on to Spain where he would first explain to the
Admiral and his officers and afterwards to the King,
all that had happened, and would seek to persuade
his Majesty to send the thousand soldiers the son
of Comogre had declared would be necessary for the
expedition across the mountains to the South Sea.
Vasco Nunez sought to be chosen for this mission,
but his companions refused him their votes, and his
adherents would not allow him to go; not only because
they would have felt themselves abandoned, but because
they suspected that once out of it, Vasco would not
return to such a furnace of calamities, following
the example of Valdivia and Zamudio, whom they had
sent off in the month of January, and who, they thought,
had no intention of returning. In this latter
they were wrong, as we shall show in the proper place,
for those men were dead.

After several ballotings without result, the colonists
finally chose a certain Juan Quevedo, a serious man
of mature age, who was agent of the royal treasury
in Darien. They had full confidence that Quevedo
would conduct this business successfully, and they
counted on his return because he had brought his wife
with him to the new world and was leaving her in the
colony as a pledge. As soon as Quevedo was elected,